Split
by New Liz's Dystopia
Summary: (Previously "Kiss From a Rose") A student with a severe case of split personality is crushing on someone at the academy, and hard. But her alter may be causing a lot more trouble than anyone would realize. Volatile, out of control, the alter is much different from who she is, and how she became is even worse of a story to tell. This may be a dark story to tell, and a sad one, too..
1. PROLOGUE

Split

by Liz

(Previously known as "Kiss From a Rose," found here: www. fanfiction dot net /s/2654491/1/Kiss-From-a-Rose, no spaces.)

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Prologue

Duel Academy island was a small paradise island in the middle of the ocean, collapsed on all ends by the waves hitting the cliffs and beaches. Salt water sprayed into the air, glittering the clear blue sky. The sun turned the ocean blue to onlookers, a strong heat touching the ground and inviting the early autumn weather to come.

A young man with dark hair and equally dark, quizzical eyes crossed the southern half of the island in a rush, racing as much as his legs could carry him from the main school campus to the dormitories. With the chains of classes broken temporarily, a taste of freedom lingered on the tongues of students, until an hour from then when the bell would ring again, and those horrid chains would pull them back to the campus. The boy came to a halt at a familiar square building, rather small compared to his preferred living conditions, but this was not somewhere he was forced to stay.

From where he stood, he could tell there were no students inside, but he figured this only so, since break usually was accompanied by the siren calls of the cafeteria, beaches, forestry, and duels on different ends of the island. The front steps of the building called to him, inviting to sit, relax, and wait, but he chose to reject this offer. Instead, he turned, and headed towards the strip of beach half a mile away. The second best location he would figure his companions to be.

And his brilliant conclusions never failed him.

Down the grassy hill and across the meadow, the little piece of paradise, complete with warm white sand and foaming blue waves against the rocks, was inhabited by only two students, both dressed in matching scarlet blazers, tossing rocks from the shore into the sea – once in a while, one would skip a few paces away and disappear into a toppling wave. The tallest of the two caught him approaching, and beamed, running his fingers through his unruly brown hair. His smile stretched into his auburn eyes, his hand dropping the stone he was about to throw into the water. The other boy was younger, and smaller, with light blue hair that matched the gaze of the sky, and light gray eyes staring up cautiously behind a pair of round framed glasses. His look of unease relaxed, and he smiled, though not as bold as the older boy.

"I have been looking for you two," Daichi called to them from the top of the hill, making his way towards the sand. A cluster of seaweed stuck out from below the hill, and he avoided it like a decaying corpse on the side of a road. "I was wondering where you were."

"My bad," the brunette boy, Judai, apologized halfhearted. "The water was calling my name."

"Careful with that, now," Daichi warned with a teasing smile. "There's a legend about hearing voices surrounding water. Look up the legend of the Lorelei. You'll see what I mean."

"I'd rather not," Judai narrowed his eyes, challenging his friend, and scooped up the stone he had dropped, only to toss it towards the ocean.

Realizing that the boy would also prefer entertainment over responsibilities, Daichi surrendered to trying to reason, and chose to join them. He picked up a stone buried under soaked sand, and flung it with a flick of the wrist. The stone skipped three times, then plopped into the water without a farewell.

"Why weren't you two in class today?" he asked casually. It wasn't a surprise that they would miss out on class, but he was curious of their excuse this time.

"There was class today?" Judai asked, his light tone masking the seriousness in his words. Daichi paused, then shook his head.

"There's class _every _day."

"That's news to me." Judai was, of course, joking, but Daichi and Sho exchanged worried glances before taking into account the boy's carefree attitude.

"So how long of a break do we have?" Sho asked, completely ignoring Judai. "Before we have to explain ourselves to Chronos?"

"An hour," Daichi warned them. He nodded towards Judai, oblivious to their part of the conversation. "And he's especially gunning for Judai this time. Not exactly in a good mood to put up with jokes."

"He's never in a joking mood, to be honest," Judai cut in, picking up a colorful seashell from the sand and pocketing it. He then bent down to trace faces in the sand. "I'll deal with him. Don't worry." His smile was assuring enough.

"Any reason why Chronos is in a 'non-joking' mood today?" Sho asked.

Daichi shook his head, giving half a shrug with his hands up. Sho took the message. Things have been relatively quiet on the island for the past few weeks. The only thing of true interest were the typical drama and rumors one would find and know about in a school, especially filled with teenagers. Last week there was a rumor of one of the Ra Yellow male students being caught smoking and drinking in a bathroom. This week it was an Obelisk Blue female student crushing on an Osiris Red student. Each week it was something different – Daichi could've sworn at some point there was a student-teacher relation one floating about the rumor mill. That was never proven to have much merit – proven, that is.

The boys were enjoying the serenity for the time being. It was bothersome, and dull, but needed.

For a good portion of the break, the boys continued to throw things into the ocean, creating a competition to see which one could skip a stone the furthest – surprisingly Sho won – and busting jokes between each other. Daichi, with a rather drier sense of humor compared to the other two, became the target of make of the jokes, seeing not much humor in them.

At some point time was forgotten and lost track of, and when a buzzer went off on Daichi's wrist, he stopped as if someone had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, choking him. He spun to his two friends, and glowered at them, as somehow they managed to get sand all over their school uniforms.

"Goodness," he sighed with frustration. "Chronos is going to have a field day with both of you. Come on, let's get out of here. Break's over."

"Already?" Judai whined impatiently. He was more child than adult at this point. Daichi didn't want to argue, but started on his way back up the hill towards the main walkway leading from the dorm.

"I'm not responsible for you two, but I don't think you'd want to get expelled anytime soon," he warned with an irritated growl.

Without arguing, the boys tailed after him and soon the three were making their way through the forestry and back towards the main campus.

But something was off. A lot of students were heading the opposite way – away from the campus. Particularly, a group of Obelisk Blue female students. Clustered in groups, they past the boys heading towards the beaches and dormitories.

"What's going on?" Judai managed to stop one of the girls. A pretty thing with bouncing red curls and faint freckles over her nose. She smiled back, flirtatious.

"There's a class over here some of us girls take," she pointed in the direction of the dorms. "It's just for us."

"Oh."

Judai let her go with the rest of her friends, just as another group of four pushed past them. Daichi was involuntarily shoved from the other two, and he stepped off the main road to allow the girls through. Once the last girl managed her way out, the three boys recollected, but couldn't help to watch as they left, pretty white skirts flapping in the wind as they moved. Hormones reigned the school.

"Hey."

Daichi's attention was drawn from the ladies when he saw Judai bend down to pick something from the ground. A deck card.

"I think one of them dropped this," Judai stated, handing it to Daichi to examine.

It was dueling card, one very rarely seen on this part of the world. A Magic Card, the design of the picture resembled the Yin-Yang symbol, only the rounded dark and light symbols were represented by two pale and ghostly beings, one dressed in white with glowing halo bright hair and feathered white wings, the other with long dark hair, red eyes, pale skin, and skeletal demon wings. Floating away from each other, the two beings had their hands laced together, holding on to each other – or dragging each other down. The top of the card called it "_Sprite Interchange_" and the description on the lower half told of the card's ability to take control of an opponent's monster to fuse it with any monster in the holder's hand, field, deck or graveyard – much similar to "_Change of Heart_" or "_Polymerization_."

"You hardly see any of those out here," Judai pointed out to Daichi.

And he was right. This was a rare card – rare to see outside the States, that was. It was used twice in televised tournaments before, once by a professional duelist, but not by Duel Academy students. Then again, it was never certain what these kids had in their decks.

Before he could think, Daichi looked to see if any of the girls were coming back for it. But the rest of the forestry was empty. Only the three of them stood there with a lost card – and no way of knowing who it belonged to.

"Think we should keep it?" Daichi suggested. He knew this was a bad idea, though – what if someone found and kept one of his deck cards and not returned it to him. Judai and Sho were on the same page as him, as they shook their heads.

"Not a good idea," Sho said. "Bad karma."

"Yeah." Judai took the card from Daichi, and flipped it over to examine it. "It most likely belongs to one of those girls. I'll talk to Asuka and have her see if it belongs to anyone she knows."

And with that, Judai stuffed the card into his pocket, while none of them saw the person standing behind the tree a few yards away disappear.


	2. CHAPTER 1: Vienne

"Oh no…."

Manami was leaning over her open backpack on the dirt path leading into the forestry, frantically rummaging through it, her heart picking up speed with each passing second. Her deck cards were scattered around her feet, small white appendages slightly too small for the blue heels she slipped on this morning, and she was pulling notes and books out from the depths of her bag. Her cheeks were flushed and her gray eyes were filling quickly with tears. Several other female students from the Obelisk Blue dorm were walking past her without giving a single glance her way — not that she really noticed.

"No. No, no, no…." She was muttering to herself, about to turn her bag inside-out and dump everything on the dirt. She didn't want to, but if she couldn't find it… if it wasn't there….

"No, no, no! Don't tell me I lost it!"

And there went everything in her bag.

Notebooks, textbooks, pens, pencils, a calculator, even a medium sized pink bottle of body spray and a blue compact mirror. All into the dirt, disbanding on the ground. Nope. Wasn't there. Her fingers flew to the top of her head, digging to her scalp through her dark hair, ready to pull it out by every waist-length strand. Those forming tears were starting to seep out and trickle down her round, cherub face.

It wasn't there. It wasn't in her deck, or her bag. Where the hell could it be?

As the crowd of girls increased in size, and the traffic starting to be an interference — mind you, no one stopped to give her a quick offer of help, let alone look her away and sympathize for her distress — she gathered up her books, dusted lightly by the dirt, and stuffed them back into her bag. Then there were the cards, some being kicked further away, others bent and scuffled by the traffic and her own disarray. She struggled to collect them back together, sighing with distress at the damage they'd taken. But she couldn't worry about it now. She shuffled them back into a deck and put it in her bag, swearing under her breath.

How could she lose it? How stupid could she be?!

"Ugh!" she groaned and lifted her bag to her shoulder, and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand — the last thing she needed was for the girls to find another reason to tease her.

Where could she have lost it? Where?

Manami looked up and absorbed the fact of the choice she had to make. Either go to class — which she was already late for — and give up looking for it, let it be lost forever. Or retrace her steps, give herself a chance to find it, but most likely she will miss class altogether. And that wasn't in her nature. Which was more important?

"Crap!" she yelled out, turning on her heels and turning back on the path she came from.

The bad thing about this new mandatory class for the girls was that it was located in the meadow just through the forestry on the island. The paths that led there were on three sides of the trees, not including the dirt path that took off from the southern coast. The trees were dense and thick, casting more shadows than light, particularly on this path, where the thickness seemed more than the other paths. So this was going to make any searching nearly impossible. But she had to try — she needed to find it, like yesterday.

She picked up her pace on the dirt path, scanning the edges of the dirt and the trees, searching for any sign of it. Her eyes swept each step she took, just in case she missed it, and with each step her anxiety built a little more. She retraced her steps back, while checking off where she's been and what she's done in her head.

First Calculus, then History… then the cafeteria for lunch… then the beach….

Where the hell could it be?

"What's going on?"

She froze at the sound of voices just a few yards away. The thicket of the trees stopped her from seeing who was approaching, but she could tell how far they were just by the slight fade in tone and pitch. They weren't far, but far enough to not see her. Only a slight glimmer of white clothing caught her attention, and — she wasn't sure what pushed her to do it — she ducked into the trees.

She stepped behind a large pine that concealed her in its shadow, and watched as students continued to pass by. A few more Obelisk girls walked on without even the slightest inclination that she was there, hiding. Then the voices spoke again from a few feet away. She turned to see three boys following the path.

"Hey."

One of the boys — young, light brown hair, sporting an Osiris Red dormitory blazer — leaned over to pick something up off the ground. Manami's heart plummeted to her stomach.

"I think one of them dropped this," the boy stated, flipping the card around between his index and middle finger. He then handed it to the other boy next to him, the only one among them wearing a Ra Yellow jacket.

Manami clenched her fists then wiped her palms on her blue skirt. From where she stood she saw it was her card, "Sprite Interchange." Still trying to comprehend how she dropped it, her mind started racing with ideas of how to get it back. Most people would just keep a rare card like that for themselves. And even if they weren't like that, how was she going to prove that it was her card? It wasn't like she wrote her name on the back of each one in her deck. Her knees started to tremble….

She needed to get that card back. How?

"Think we should keep it?" the Ra boy suggested, though he didn't sound too certain on his words. Manami watched the Osiris boys shake their heads. She started to breathe a little easier.

"Not a good idea," the shorter boy, blue hair and round glasses, spoke with a slight squeak in his voice. "Bad karma."

"Yeah." The other Osiris boy agreed as he took the card back and flipped it over in his hand to examine it. From where she was, Manami could see the slight wear and tear in the corners of the card, the minuscule fade in the brown coloration of the back. With each sign of age, she could see how many years she's used it, each duel that she's won playing it.

In fact, it was how she got into the Academy in the first place. Not that she really wanted to go. Dueling was more of a hobby for her. Not really a lifetime passion for her….

"I'll talk to Asuka and have her see if it belongs to anyone she knows," the brown haired boy spoke, before stuffing the card into his pocket.

And Manami's heart quickly turned to stone and fell into her bowels. She felt a wave of nausea hit her like a collapsing wave. She buckled against the tree, her legs giving out. She was never going to get it back now!


	3. CHAPTER 2: Beschatten

Chapter 2: Beschatten

_Beschatten: German for "to shadow, tale, foreshadow"_

* * *

Classes resumed with their particularly dull normalcy for the next following days. The students of the Academy were blissfully unaware of the mild drama starting to form, a slight quell turning under the surface. Not enough to grasp anyone's attention, but like all storms, it was lingering off the horizon, toying with the choice to come ashore.

Quite literally. As was usual for Judai, slacking off and missing classes was more of a past time than a hobby, and he found himself, like many other times before, scoping out the sea view from the edges of the island, watching the waves bounce off the rocks and cliff sides. His hands were stuffed into his pockets, the forefinger of his right hand stroking the back of the worn card he kept in the pocket of his blazer for the past few days. He took some time to research the card, determine its rarity, and see if there were any known duelists who might have been reported using it that were in the school roster. Nothing came up, and so he had no choice but to resolve to his initial method.

This was the reason for missing class now. It wasn't outside of his habit to do so, and while he may get the predictable lecture and ass-chewing from Chronos – as well as the ever anticipated detention – it wouldn't show up as a red flag to anyone if he missed another day. No one would ask questions, no one would bat an eye. He may as well be invisible at this point.

In the distant view he saw the haze of dark gray clouds hovering over the horizon. A stronger breeze picked up and blew through the island. There was a storm out there, but it was too far away to tell if it would come to the island – from the size of it, though, it may cause some damage. Further back behind him he heard the tones of the school bell, indicating the end of the period. That was his cue to go.

He turned and headed back to the main campus, tracking his path through the trees that divided the land, and about fifteen yards in, he came to a break in the trees, ended up in an emerald green clearing in front of several large buildings dispensing groups of colorfully vested students, a blurred cloud of crimson, gold, and sapphire. He took a moment to search the crowds, knowing exactly what he was looking for and where he was going to find it. Sure enough, a bobbing head of hay colored blond hair caught his attention, merged in between two other young girls sporting similar bright blue vests and white skirts. He hustled his step to catch up to the three.

"Asuka!" he called out through the crowd.

And instinctive, the blond turned and searched for him among the students, though it didn't take long to see him. A soft smile crossed her face – always somewhere between gentle and serious, like a sister scolding her brother – but her wide brown eyes were hard, stern.

"Judai! You missed class again!" she snapped at him, her voice as sharp as daggers . With one arm cradling her books, she placed her free hand on her waist and squared her hips, promptly turning from a sisterly figure to a mother.

Judai beamed innocently. "Yeah. I'll make it up some other time." His usual excuse, not one she was fond of hearing at this point.

"It was an _exam_! Chronos is really gunning for your head now," she warned him. But she was greeted with a playful eye roll, and a sigh, followed by, "When isn't he?"

Judai and Asuka stared at each other for a moment, one not budging before the other, before the boy finally remembered why he needed her - the slight brush of the card in his pocket amptly caught his attention.

"Listen. I need to ask you something," he pulled out the card, showing it to the three girls. "Do you know who this might belong to?"

Asuka and her friends stared at the card, the younger with the red, short hair blinking at it profusely. The blond girl took it from him and examined it, much in the same way that he did when he found it. The faded brown color on the back made him wonder if it's been exchanged between multiple hands, just like this situation.

"_Sprite Interchange_," Asuka mumbled the name carefully, as though each syllable may be filled with questions she wouldn't be able to answer. "I thought this was a one-of-a-kind card?"

"So did I," Judai agreed with a nod. "I did a little bit of research. I wasn't able to find anyone that it may belong to, but I did learn that there's only a few of these reproduced in the world. And they usually run a pretty heavy price. Only the richest duelists could afford them."

"Like Kaiba Seto?" the red haired friend asked. Judai nodded. "Or someone as rich as him."

"There are a few students that come from wealthy families on the island," Asuka pointed out, though her eyes focused on the card. "And most of them are in Obelisk Blue, so it shouldn't be too hard to find."

"Do you think you could ask around for me and find out?"

Asuka cracked a sly smile out of the corner of her mouth. "Sure. But you owe me one."

"I'll pay you back for it. I promise." A swift, subtle look exchanged between them, one that, if no one was watching them closely at that precise moment, it would've been missed. And it was, care of Asuka's oblivious friends.

A moment passed. "Alright. I'll ask around. But _you_ need to show up to class before Chronos goes for my head along with yours!"

"Why would he go for your head?" Judai blushed.

"He'll go for anyone that he sees close to you," Asuka sighed. "And he _knows_ that we're friends, so..."

Judai laughed awkwardly, but he refused to admit she was right. It would be a cold day in Hell before he did that.

"Alright, alright. I'll show up."

Asuka knew he was lying, but she didn't say anything more. Instead, she handed the card back to him, despite the questionable look on his face. "For safe keeping. It'll probably be safer with you than with me."

Judai didn't argue. He took the card back and placed it once more in his pocket. As the crowds dispersed and the school bell rang again, he turned and beamed at her from over his shoulder. "Gotta go. I'll catch you later." Before anyone could say anything, he took off in a run away from the campus, heading back through the woods to the Osiris Red dormitory. Asuka just stood there with her friends, shaking her head.

"He'll never change," she muttered fondly under her breath.


End file.
